A Homage to Indrajal - Cover 2 - Valley of the Gorillamen Part-1

Post-Indrajal Covers – A tribute to Indrajal Comics

What if Indrajal still existed and published comic strip stories today, just like they did in those days? If they did, what would've they looked like? As a homage to the magic of Indrajal Comics, I made some "Indrajal Covers" for stories that never ran on Indrajal, that is, for stories that came after Indrajal Comics stopped publishing. Here is the second Post-Indrajal cover I made, with a story titled "Valley of the Gorillamen Part-1".

My Indrajal cover for "Valley of the Gorillamen Part-1".

• Original artwork : Daily Phantom story (No. 201) "Valley of the Gorillaman" (Original run from 13 November 2000 - 17 March 2001), written by Tony De Paul and drawn by George Olesen and Keith Williams. (You can read this story on the official site - thephantomcomics.com)
• Indrajal logo & title from one of the old Indrajal Comics. (Volume number & date are just randomly entered.)
• Rearranged, retouched, partially redrawn, recoloured, enhanced, given a new title, and turned into a "Indrajal Cover" or, a Post-Indrajal Cover, by me.

I enlarged the original art from a panel in the comic, to make that as a feature in this "Post-Indrajal Cover". I had to digitally redraw and recolour over the blurred art to make it look as good as it was, and even better. Colouring and redrawing the gorillaman took more effort than the rest of the cover!

I had to redraw over the existing art for some corrections to the Phantom's masked eyes and the gorillaman's eyes and face. The gorillaman in the original art looked sleepy and strange, and his teeth looked strange too. I made some corrections to his face and gave him a mean and menacing look. Also, in the original panel (see below), and in the coloured version of this story that I used, the gorillamen are all white, and not brown coloured. I found that odd, and coloured him brown instead.

The original panel from the story that I used to make the fan-art cover.

What's with the Part-1, you ask? Indrajal comics used to publish some stories in parts, typically in two or three parts. Smaller stories were also sometimes published in parts, with about fifteen to sixteen pages in each part. The other half of the comic book used to contain another story, typically of other characters like Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby or Buz Sawyer, in similar parts of fifteen/sixteen number of pages per part. The second story in the book was typically not shown or mentioned in the covers. The characters, like Flash Gordon or Rip Kirby, who usually appeared as a second story in a Phantom or Mandrake story in parts, also had their own full story in some issues.

So, if this story of the valley of the gorillamen was published on Indrajal, and they decided to make a two part feature out of it which spanned two issues, then perhaps the first part would look like this. I'll share the part-2 cover in my next post.

If I ever find more time, I'd like to draw some cover art myself as a homage to Indrajal & Lee Falk's Phantom, especially for stories that were never published on Indrajal. But until then, these Post-Indrajal Covers are a tribute to a comic that was once very popular across India.

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Please Note: Indrajal Comics was a comic book series launched and owned by The Times of India Publication, who own all the rights to their respective titles, logos and other assets related to their comic book series. Phantom, Mandrake, and other comic strips are written and drawn by their respective authors and artists. Phantom and Mandrake are owned by King Features Syndicate, Inc, who own all images from their respective comic strips; and all the rights associated with those comic strips remain with their respective creators.

The Post-Indrajal Comic Covers in this above post are only Fan-Art created by me for the sole purpose of paying homage to the great Indrajal Comics which used to be a very popular comic book series in India.